1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method and apparatus for forming a character in an Raster Image Processor (RIP) of an electronic printer or the like, and more particularly to a method and apparatus for dividing and developing a Bezier curve representing a character at a high speed.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Conventional processing methods for developing a character curve are based on the following:
(1) A curve is divided and an error calculated in succession by software.
(2) As disclosed in Laid-Open Japanese Patent Specification No. 1-175085 (1989), an outline font is formed using parameters indicating coordinates of a curved section.
However, these conventional methods suffer the following respective drawbacks:
(1) Since it is necessary to successively process a large number of calculations for dividing the curve and calculating the error, a substantial amount of time is expended in the software processing of the character curve.
(2) In the case of indicating coordinates of a curved section with the aid of parameters, a tolerable error cannot be clearly defined.